Earlier this year there was considerable debate about the future of this popular list, which, like the Carnegie Medal nominations (see previous post) provides a terrific source of titles for keen readers. It’s difficult to find the final decision without being a member of YALSA ; this post in response to the SLJ article suggests that none had been made, certainly at the time of writing, but this post refers to a proposed readers’ choice award, possibly taking BBYA’s place at some future date.

No matter for now. We have a 2009 list of nominations and we are delighted to see the following titles on it:

• Michelle Cooper – A Brief History of Montmaray
• Alison Goodman – Eon : Dragoneye Reborn (aka The Two Pearls of Wisdom)
• Steven Herrick – Cold Skin
• Simmone Howell – Everything Beautiful
• Catherine Jinks – The Reformed Vampire Support Group
• Justine Larbalestier – Liar
• Shaun Tan – Tales from Outer Suburbia

Selections for the final BBYA 2009 list will be made at the January 2010 YALSA Midwinter meeting to be held in Boston.

The lists are long, and keen readers will want to devour as much as they can get their hands on from the Carnegie list, Those who love illustration will savour the titles in the Greenaway list.

Eagle-eyed Judith Ridge alerted us to the nomination announcements via twitter, where she noted that the beautiful and poignant Harry and Hopper (a Margaret Wild / Freya Blackwood collaboration) was in the running for the Greenaway.

The shadowing site will be up and running soon, and worth keeping an eye on.

Image of Kate Greenaway used under Creative Commons licence.

This School Library Association publication complements previous free lists Boys into Books 5-11 and Boys into Books 11-14. All are part of the SLA Riveting Reads series.

The titles on the Everyone’s Reading list can also be browsed online in a searchable database on the dedicated website. UK schools can select 15 titles from the list as part of a gifting program.

Everyone’s Reading has recently started on twitter.

Patrick Ness, Kate De Goldi, Angie Sage, Morris Gleitzman, Garth Nix, Andy Griffiths and Mark Walden … some of the writers for young people we will enjoy at the 2010 Perth Writers Festival.

The full Arts Festival (PIAF) program was unveiled yesterday. Earmark Friday 26 February to Monday 1 March for the literature component, with the traditional free Family Fun Day taking place on Sunday 28 February. This is a long weekend in WA.

PIAF runs from 5 February to 1 March.

The award is open to works of fiction written in, or translated into, English and published within a specified period of time, and as usual there are plenty of Australians on the longlist.

Fiction Focus was planning to extrapolate all the Australian nominations, but being a bit slow to tackle this task, we are happy to see that Perry Middlemiss at the Matilda blog has already done the work.

It’s nice to see Kate De Goldi and Ursula Le Guin in this company, too.

The New York Times obituary is here.

Australian and UK cover. Copyright rests with the publisher, Scholastic

The author

• Suzanne Collins’s website
• Biography (Scholastic USA)

The text

• The Hunger Games website
• Chapter 1 (PDF)
• Audio extract (mp3)
• Suzanne Collins reads Chapter 11 (mp3)
• Reading group guide
• Mitali Perkins – video discussion starter: Race in The Hunger Games

Reviews

• Fiction Focus
  
• Entertainment Weekly
• School Library Journal
• Time Magazine

Articles and Interviews

• Author Q & A from Scholastic
• Interview from Teenreads
• Borders Book Club, Part 1 (video)
• Borders Book Club, Part 2 (video)
• Borders Book Club, Part 3 (video)
• Borders Book Club, Part 4 (video)
• Borders Book Club, Part 5 (video)
• Wikipedia article (anything missing? can it be improved?)

Awards

• New York Times Bestseller List (Children’s Books)
• A Horn Book Fanfare 2008 (Fiction)
• A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2008 (Children’s Fiction)
• A School Library Journal Best Book of 2008 (Fiction)
• A Booklist Editors’ Choice 2008 (Books for Youth)
• A New York Times Notable Book of 2008 (Children’s Books)
• A Kirkus Review Best Book of 2008
• A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice 2008
• And while many readers consider it Best. Book. Ever, does it meet Newbery Medal criteria? Discussion on the Mock Newbery blog.
• Added 7 November 2009: More from the Mock Newbery blog 5 November) , this time  in praise of The Hunger Games

Dystopian fiction

• Utopian and dystopian fiction (Wikipedia)
• Dystopia and Science Fiction : Blade Runner, Brazil and Beyond (or, Who’s Dystopia Is It?) (or, Dystopia is in the Eyes of the (frightened) Beholder). Notes from the Digital Cultures Project (University of California, Santa Barbara) with a definition, comments on the cultural and political sources of dystopian fiction and what we can learn from reading it.
• Dystopias in contemporary literature (eNotes)

The film

• IMDB – in development for proposed 2011 release
• Lionsgate gets Hunger Games (FusedFilm blog)

Read more dystopian fiction: a list from the CMIS database.

Whilst the list is mostly North American in flavour, one or two foreigners have crept in, including this comment about a certain Shaun Tan’s Tales:

Tan proves that his prose is every bit as hypnotic as his artwork in this wondrous collection that reveals the banality and strangeness of the suburbs.

The full list is here.

Best novel – Margo Lanagan (Tender Morsels) was in a dead heat with Jeffrey Ford for The Shadow Year.

Best artist – yes, you’ve guessed correctly – the inimitable Shaun Tan.

Congratulations to both.

All winners here.

Thanks PaperTigers.